“Shoot another arrow at them!” The man with the peach skin and four arms shouted.
The two-headed giant put another arrow against his string, but this one bounced off MCA’s plates as he moved to block Ad-Rock. I was keeping Ad-Rock as far away as I could from them so that they couldn’t see the hut posts I had stashed on his back, but the giant guy might have been able to see that something was stored between the stego’s armor if he looked intently enough.
“Anothe--” the four armed man started to say, but then the two-headed giant shook his head and pounded his chest with his free hand.
“You go stab them with your spears!”
“They will hit me with their tails!” the four armed man yelled. “We have done this a hundred times. You hit them with your arrow, then I spear them to finish them off.”
“They seem to know where I am going to aim!” the archer said. “Iatallti, can you make it so they can’t see?”
“All three of them?” the octopus faced man asked.
“Yeah, that way they won’t see where I am.”
“That will be it for the day then,” Octopus Face said.
“I don’t care,” said the snake man as he raised one of his ridiculously buff arms. “Do it.”
Octopus Face raised his arms and wiggled his tentacle fingers. Suddenly, three globes of blackness appeared over the faces of the stegos, and I could sense their terror. They wanted to run, but I held onto them with my will, and ordered them to be calm and step back away from the shore of the river. The globes of darkness moved with them, but it was okay. I could see just fine, and I ordered them to twist so that the two-headed giant’s next arrow bounced off Mike D’s plates.
“Impossible!” the archer shouted as he slammed his fist into his chest again.
“We’ll cross and kill them up close,” the snake-man said. “It will be easier when they can’t see.”
“I can only hold the Ink Well for another few moments,” the octopus-man said, but the other three men were already moving.
The two headed archer jumped to the next boulder in the middle of the river, and then he made a running jump to one that was a quarter of the way to our shore.
Gee looked at me and raised her palms, and I crouched a bit lower, put the side of my hand up to my eye level, gestured with three fingers, and then drew the line across my throat. She nodded and then sank lower into the deep pool where she was just as the archer jumped off the boulder where she hid and landed on the shore ten feet in front of her.
The two-headed giant glanced at the trio of stegos and then turned around to watch the four-armed man and snake-legged man jump across the boulders, Gee’s green eyes stopped glowing just as he turned, and I guessed that she had closed them.
As soon as the other two men were about to jump to the last boulder where Gee hid, the archer turned away from them and then walked toward the stegos. I had positioned my dinos so that their heads were turned away from the men, and the two-headed giant reached them just as the other two men landed on the sandy beach right in front of the submerged Gee.
Then the stegos got to strike back.
The two-headed archer probably thought that my three pals wouldn’t be able to hit him because they couldn’t see. He walked right between Mike D and MCA’s tails, and they both moved too fast for him to even utter a scream of surprise.
Mike D’s tail whipped across high, and MCA’s tail came in low. The two sets of spikes hit the giant at the same time, and his large body exploded into pieces like month old ground beef.
The snake-man and four-armed man shouted with surprise, but Gee had launched herself out of the water like a superwoman, and her fire whip exploded out of her hand with the sound of ripping paper.
The four-armed man with the two spears managed a half turn, but her whip sliced through his stomach like a knife passing through a stream of water. The whip even cut the two spears in half, and then she brought the weapon back around to take off the top part of his chest and spears with just as easy of a movement.
The snake-man turned around as Gee landed, and he opened his mouth a half moment before a spray of liquid shot out of it. I guessed it was poison, and the fire-woman let out a shout of surprise the instant it hit her in her glowing green eyes.
Gee brought her arm up to cover her eyes, and the snake man stepped forward with a thrust of his over-muscled right arm. She actually surprised me by ducking under his jab, but then his other arm swung around with a close uppercut and caught her in the stomach. There was a sound of wood smacking against wood, and the woman lifted up into the air, flew across the beach, and slammed into the boulder where she hid with a painful cracking sound.
Then she fell into the pool of water as her flame whip went out.
I was already running, and as I ran, I commanded Grumpy to take care of Octopus Face on the other side of the river, and Bruce to stay back so that he wouldn’t get hurt.
The snake-man had taken three steps toward where Gee had fallen in the water, but he heard me coming and turned his head as I was about to get to him. His mouth was already open, but I expected the spray from his mouth so I ducked down low as the shit flew over my head, and then I punched my short obsidian knife up and into his chest.
The man let out a howl of agony as soon as I stabbed him, and I yanked the knife up and out as I tried to pull it clear. The maneuver was successful, and a spray of green blood flew through the air.
There was just a half moment before his massive fist flew toward my face.
I knew he was going to punch me, so I was already rolling back with the momentum of pulling my knife free. I swore that I could feel his knuckles brush across the stubble on my chin, but then I was rolling backward across the sand and rocks on the beach.
“Fucker!” the snake man growled as he tried to punch me again. I was already out of the range of his fists, but then he opened his mouth wide again, and I let out a yelp of surprise as I dove to my left to avoid another spray of his poison.
I leapt up on my boots after I finished my roll across the rocks, then I jumped back, turned, and sprinted toward the stegos. As soon as I made it to their tails, I glanced back to see the snake-man chasing me as his mouth opened again.
He didn’t get his spray out in time.
MCA’s spiky tail whipped around and impaled the snake-man’s chest and skull. My opponent managed to scream a bit as his body twitched as he hung from MCA’s tail, but two of the spikes had clearly gone through the monster-man’s skull, and he stopped screaming as soon as MCA twisted his tail again and flung the corpse into the river.
The black globes around the stego’s faces disappeared, and I looked over to see Grumpy yanking Octopus Face into the river. The tentacled man still had his flat-faced tooth club in his hands, but only his arms and shoulders were free of Grumpy’s maw, and the alien-man didn’t have enough leverage to bring the club down on my pet croc’s head.
Then Grumpy thrashed his maw sideways, and Octopus Face’s lower body tore free from his upper torso, and my croc rolled back into the river.
I ran over to the water pool where Gee had fallen, and I saw her floating face down. My heart leapt into my chest as I leapt into the water to grab her, and I tried to remember all of two CPR classes I had taken as I laid her on her back.
I tipped up her mouth to open the airways and then pushed my fingers into the side of the neck to feel for a pulse. I didn’t feel one, but that could have just been because of my inexperience or because she wasn’t human. Either way, I inhaled a quick breath, pushed my mouth over hers, and then puffed just as I recalled doing to the test dummy during the training session. I did it two more times and then moved to compress her her ribs right below her breasts.
Before I could push, the fire-woman gasped, and I gently turned her over on her side. She immediately puked out a few cups of water, and I gently rubbed her back between her shoulder blades in an effort to help her feel better.
“Are your eyes okay?” I asked aft
er she stopped puking, coughing, and wheezing.
“Yes,” she gasped. “I think the water cleaned them out. They still burn a little, but I can see. Did you kill them?”
“Yeah,” I answered, but then Octopus Face started screaming from across the river, and I looked over to him. “Weird. I guess he is still alive.”
“You killed the one who spit on me?” she asked as she turned over and tried to sit up.
“Yeah,” I said as I unbuttoned my shirt, pulled it off, and then rolled it up under her head. “Just rest here. I’m going to go talk to that fucker across the water and see what he knows.”
“Okay,” Gee wheezed as she blinked her glowing eyes.
I ran toward the boulder that Gee had hid behind, jumped on a side stone, and then pulled myself up on the edge of the taller ledge. The rest of the way across the river was pretty easy, and I was soon standing at the top half of Octopus Face’s body. Grumpy had done one hell of a butchering job on the torn part of his torso, and I felt my stomach twist when I tried to identify all the various alien guts coming out of the man’s top half. He was still screaming, his eyes were blinking, and his pincer mouths on his face were snapping, so I figured his heart and lungs must have been left behind.
“Time to talk,” I said as I grabbed his weapon from the shore. It really did look like a cricket bat, but now that I held it in my own hands, I could see that the teeth were sharpened bits of flint which looked to have been attached with tree sap to the carved slot that ran the perimeter of the weapon.
“Fuck you,” the man hissed, and then blood flowed out one of his mouths.
“Look, you’ve gotta be in all sorts of pain,” I said as I raised the Cricket Bat of Doom in my hand to test its weight. “Answer some questions and I’ll expedite the process. How many were in your group?”
“Fuck--”
“I’ll just let you die all slowly then,” I interrupted him.
“Just us,” he hissed.
“Where is your camp at?” I asked.
“Direction we came in. About two hundred yards.”
“Can you give me any distinguishing landmarks?”
“Just kill me already,” he groaned.
“Distinguishing landmarks?”
“We had four huts, the fire is still burning. You’ll find it, but there is nothing there to take.” He started coughing, and another one of his beaks on his face stopped moving.
I brought the Cricket Bat of Doom down on Octopus Man’s head with a two handed strike and ended his life instantly. Then I glanced back across the river. Gee was still laying on her back with her head on my shirt, and Bruce was standing next to her.
“I’m going to be right back!” I shouted over the water. The pteranodon let out a honk of caution, but Gee didn’t move. For half a moment, I wondered if I should just forget about their camp and get out of here, but they might have useful equipment that I could take, and they sure as hell weren’t going to be needing it anymore.
I set the flat part of the Cricket Bat of Doom on my shoulder and then stepped into the thick bushes next to me. It was actually pretty easy to find my way to their camp since the four of them had taken the same path each time, and the bushes were pushed over from their walking. After I had traveled about eighty yards, I saw the roof of one of the huts, and I waited behind a pine tree for a few moments while I listened for anyone else. I didn’t hear anything, so I crept the rest of the way to the back edge of the hut and looked at the rest of the camp.
There were no log walls erected for defense, but there was a twenty foot high cliff face that the camp was set back into. It meant that attacks could only come from the direction of the river. For a few moments, I thought these guys were kind of stupid for not putting up walls, but then I realized that this forest was pretty dense around me, and it would be unlikely that any predator larger than a Utahraptor would really be able to move around in here. Granted, even though a Utahraptor was pretty fucking scary, if one of these guys could prevent up to three creatures from seeing with those Ink Wells, then they were probably pretty good with defense.
The four huts were made out of cane posts covered with fern leaves. The design of each structure was sound, but none of them looked like they were put together with any care, and I saw a few holes in the fern thatching of the one I stood against, and the hut on the opposite side of the campfire leaned a little off balance as if it wasn’t set on stable ground.
I still didn’t hear any movement from inside the huts, so I stepped out from behind the one where I hid and then moved to the fire that was burning in the middle of the camp. Dozens of bones were in the fire, and various stone knives, axes with wood handles, and something that looked a lot like an antler pick axe was lying in a neat pile by beside the flames. It was a pretty good find, but before I picked them all up, I glanced inside of the first hut.
There were some stone bowls inside filled with water, a sleeping mat, and a small fire pit that looked like it hadn’t been lit in a few days. The sight made me pause for a second, but then I went to the next hut, and my suspicions were confirmed.
The inside of this hut was covered with blood and smelled like terror. There were posts driven into the ground with vines tied around loops someone had carved into the top. It looked like someone might have been bound, tortured, and killed inside of the hut.
I moved to the next hut and gasped when I saw a woman laying on her side on top of a sleeping mat. At least, I thought it was as a woman since her legs were long and slender, and her hair was long and covering most of her body. Her ankles were bound with cordage, and I set down my Cricket Bat of Doom on the dirt outside of the hut before I ducked inside.
“Hey,” I whispered as I gently touched her leg above the bindings around her ankle. It didn’t look like she was wearing any clothes, but it was hard for me to tell the exact color of her hair in the darkness of the hut. “You okay?”
I was worried she was dead, since she didn’t move when I touched her, but then I reached up to touch where I thought her shoulders were under her long hair, and she let out a choking sound as she twisted away from me.
“It’s okay! It’s okay! It’s okay!” I whispered as she turned her wide eyes toward me. Her face was covered with blood and bruises and her mouth had a thick strip of leather tied between her lips. It was hard to tell exactly what she looked like because of the darkness of the hut, but she looked skinny and her ears jutted out from behind her hair like long dagger points.
“Hmmmhhhrrruufff!” she said as she wiggled away from me farther, pressed her back against the wall and tried to kick me. Now that her hair was out of the way, I could see that she was naked, and her body looked humanoid.
“I’m going to cut you free,” I said slowly as I showed her my palms. “I’ll move slowly. Can you give me your ankles so I can untie you?”
Her eyes were still wild, and she struggled to try to kick me again. She really couldn’t get any leverage because her feet were tied together and her hands were tied behind her back, so she started to tip over with a gasp. I reached out to catch her shoulder so she wouldn’t fall, and then I rested my other hand on the top of her thigh so that she wouldn’t try to kick me again.
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “I have a camp with a bunch of friends, and we take care of each other. You can come with us if you want, or you can do your own thing. Will you just hold still so I can untie you?”
The woman’s wide eyes seemed to focus on me finally, and then she blinked and nodded quickly.
“Okay, ankles first,” I said as I carefully let go of her shoulder and then lifted my hand off her thigh. I half expected her to make another attempt to kick me, but she didn’t so I moved my hands down to the cordage that was binding her ankles.
“Shit,” I hissed after I spent ten seconds trying to untie it. “It’s really tight.” I moved to pull the knife out of my pocket, but then I stopped myself and looked back up into her eyes. “I have a knife in my pocket. I�
�m going to take it out and cut these ropes. Is that okay with you?”
The woman seemed to consider for half a moment, and then she nodded her head slowly. I could easily see the terror in her eyes, and I sighed with sadness as I reached into my pocket.
“I’m Victor, by the way,” I whispered as I carefully moved the tip of my knife over the strands of cordage around her ankles. “I’m guessing this used to be your home, and then those four men found you.”
The woman nodded, and I glanced up for a moment to see her blinking away tears.
“I was passing down river, and they tried to attack my friends and me. They are dead now.” As soon as I finished the sentence, I cut through the last of the cordage, and the woman twisted her feet away from me and then pushed herself back against the wall of the hut.
“I can cut the ones around your wrists as well,” I said as I pointed my left hand down at the obsidian knife in my right hand. “Like I said, I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry for what has happened to you, but I’m not like those four assholes.”
She stared at me for a few more moments, and then she nodded and turned slightly so that her back was to me. I couldn’t see where her wrists were bound because of her long hair, but I stopped myself before I touched it.
“Uhhh, I need to touch your hair and move it out of the way so that I can see your wrists. Is that okay?”
The woman nodded, and I took a deep breath before I pulled her hair aside.
“Oh fuck,” I sighed when I saw her back. It looked like the thin woman might have once had wings, but the area where her shoulder blades were now had two long wounds that were covered with dried blood. The injury on the left side looked a little infected, and the skin around the injury was swollen and red. I didn’t see any puss though, so I figured the injury was recent from the way the dried blood looked.
“I’m going to cut you free,” I said as I pulled my knife against the cordage around her delicate wrists. These wraps cut a lot easier, and as soon as the woman’s wrists were loose, she twisted herself away from me, crossed her arms over her chest so that I couldn’t see her breasts, and raised one of her feet to try to push me away.
Tamer- King of Dinosaurs 5 Page 10